ATHABASCA – Georgia Johnson’s volleyball journey has taken her from the Edwin Parr Composite School gymnasium, to the Lutheran Christian Bible Institute (LCBI), 708 kilometers away in Outlook Sask.
And now, the 17-year-old Athabasca native has committed to play for the Brandon University Bobcats Women’s Volleyball team for the upcoming 2023-2024 Canada West Season.
Johnson, who is currently finishing up her Grade 12 year at LCBI, says she is excited for the opportunity to play for the Bobcats.
“When I got the chance to travel there to see the campus, and to practice with the team, the players and coaches were all so supportive… It really felt like they were rooting for me,” said Johnson.
The 5’10” ‘left-sider’ didn’t take the typical route to collegiate sports. She didn’t pick the game up until Grade 9, preferring hockey and soccer, and said that her initial exposure to the game came from playing with her two older brothers in the yard, rallying a ball back and forth.
Her first formal experience playing the game came from Colleen and Greg Elgert, with their club team Fog Volleyball here in Athabasca. While the Elgerts served as her first coaches, Johnson said that their daughter Abby “really helped me and took me under her wing that season. I don’t think I would love the sport as much as I do without those experiences with those people.”
After the success she had playing for (and with) the Elgerts, Johnson decided to try out for Team Alberta. Since this was right around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, tryouts were done via video submission. Despite making the cut, the opportunity was cut short due to the increasing restrictions, and she was forced to wait until the summer after Grade 10 for her chance to actually play a game with the U-16 girls team.
Talk to any coach, in any sport, and they’ll tell you how important it is for athletes to be working on the development of their game in the early high school years. The pandemic threw a wrench into that developmental phase, but Johnson made sure to focus on strength training in the absence of games.
“We had a small home gym, and my cousins had a homemade court in their yard, so we would go in and practice, which was really cool. I just made sure I touched a volleyball every day, even if it was only for a little bit.”
One of the challenges a lot of university students face is the struggle with being truly independent for the first time, which Johnson feels she’s already prepared for thanks to her decision to attend LCBI.
“I think it’s going to help a lot, I always miss home but I’m kind of past that now. The independence that I’ve gained living in a dorm so far away from my parents is really going to help with taking initiative to be disciplined and take care of myself and the things around me”
LCBI’s website notes it’s “built on excellent learning, caring relationships, and personal faith” and attending the institution has become something of a tradition for the women in her family, as she’s following in the footsteps of her mother and her grandmother before her. Despite this, she said that there was no plan to attend until an opportunity for a day visit was presented to her.
“I kind of thought of it as a day off of school … go for a road trip and check out the school campus. I didn’t think much of it initially but over the summer I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I decided to take the leap.”
